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Monthly Archives: April 2011

Regular readers of In Development have probably noticed that I’m not one for set reviews. Part of this is that I tend to zone out a little if I try to comment on each and every card in a new set. The rest is that we already have Luis doing the best set reviews around, so there’s no need to waste my time writing a review that will cover less ground than Luis does.
However, when there are new mechanics, I like to talk about those.
In this week’s In Development, I tackle Phyrexian mana – those funky little colored phi symbols that let you pay life rather than mana, should you be so inclined. Phyrexian mana lives in the land of alt costs, and I’m a big fan of those…as well as addressing each new idea that’s queued up to “ruin Magic forever.”
So click here to read the article, then comment, find me on twitter, or email me to let me know what you think.

It’s in Development time again, and this time around I’m asking a very simple question.
Is this a good card?
No? No.
But why not?
The situational nature of the value of this kind of effect is something players learn eventually as they progress in their skill at Magic, and this week I’ve put together what I hope is a concise explanation about why these cards often don’t do as much as you wish they did, and how this applies to a card from the upcoming New Phyrexia.Click here to read the article, and then comment, post to twitter, or email me to let me know what you think.

Jonathan Richmond (aka norbert88) wrote this today on twitter, which I thought encapsulated the sentiment of the post-GP DFW discussion about Jace quite well:
Ted Knutson, who knows how to leverage controversy into blog traffic, has written about the case for banning Jace here. It’s a worthy read, and it segues into what I’m hoping will be an entertaining propaganda poster contest.
The question Jonathan asked can be simplified into the more basic, “What gets a card banned?”
Click through to the extended to find out.

I’ve never been that fond of the flavor of Mirrodin.
I meant to write about that as its own topic, but I think I’m fundamentally not especially motivated to write commentary that can be summarized as “meh.” The brief version goes like so:
Mirrodin has always struck me as feeling a lot like “story” pitches I’ve heard from artists who haven’t studied story and don’t read a lot. “He’s like Frankenstein, but with a gun in his head!” It’s more of a concept than a story – which is great if you’re doing concept art, but doesn’t lend itself to coherency. The whole “metal world made from nowhere” idea really always felt like that as well.
Or to put it another way, it doesn’t scan.
Aaron Forsythe and Mark Rosewater, among others, have talked about how the story of a set should be conveyed in the feel of the mechanics. I think the original Mirrodin block succeeded in this, which is why so much of it is uninteresting or gimmicky (see Leveler).
So when I first saw that we were returning to Mirrodin, I was concerned…and Scars of Mirrodin honestly didn’t help with that feeling. The cards didn’t particularly inspire me, and the Limited PTQ season wasn’t all that engaging.
But I did like the Phyrexians. There we had an ecological infestation I could get behind.
Learning that that was the actual point of the block, as we saw with the release of Besieged, was great. Mirrodin Besieged introduced the Phyrexians in their new form, along with the extraordinarily flavorful addition of Living Weapon.
And although I didn’t mention it above, Infect and especially Proliferate beautifully conveyed the flavor of the spreading Phyrexian corruption.
I was suitably pleased, then, to see that the third set is New Phyrexia. I think I’m going to like the discussion of the Phyrexian factions if they’re going to follow in the steps of this week’s Savor the Flavor. It’s fascinating to track how the Phyrexians have changed (adapted, perhaps) from this:
…to this:
…and finally this:
Doug Beyer’s discussion of the The Machine Orthodoxy sparked feelings of what fascinated me about Warhammer 40,000 way (way!) back in junior high when I first picked up my copy of Rogue Trader.
This new take on Phyrexia has really redeemed a block that I was dubious about at the beginning, and like the Eldrazi before them, they’re a worthy entry (or perhaps re-entry in this case) into the pantheon of Magic villains.

It’s In Development time again, and this week I get to talk about playing U/B Control featuring this nice lady here.
Well, “featuring” in the sense that it runs two copies of Liliana and six copies of Jace. As always, various iterations of everyone’s favorite blue planeswalker tend to dominate any U/x control build at the moment. Nonetheless, it’s a deck that actually uses Liliana to good effect, so much so that Guillaume Wafo-Tapa cited her as the co-star MVP in his deck next to Precursor Golem.
I cut the Golems, so you can see where my loyalties lie.Click here to read this week’s In Development, and then talk to me in the comments, via twitter, or email to let me know what you think about U/B Control in today’s Standard.